MN2M = My Notes To Myself.
Seven officials of Union Carbide Ltd (UCL) were convicted and sentenced two years jail term on 7th June 2010. The court awarded this sentence after almost 25 years. The gas leak in Bhopal unit of UCL had occurred on 3rd Dec 1984 which had resulted in more than 35000 deaths in the neighboring slums.
The seven accused includes the business leader Mr Keshub Mahindra (who was non-executive Chairman of Union Carbide in 1984). Mr Keshub Mahindra is the current Chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra, the car-and-utility-vehicle manufacturer. The other six accused were employees of Union Carbide, Bhopal.
This note is not about the cause of the gas leak or about the award or the lives lost or about the accsued. The note is on the lessons one can take to pre-empt such incidents in future.
a. Adequate safety measures must be taken as per the industry standards and specifications in such installations.
b. Adequate factor-of-safety must also be taken into consideration in such installations.
c. Adequate back-up systems to contain leakages, fire, explosion, … must also be in place. The management must not compromise in these aspects.
d. Preventive Maintenance of these installations must be performed regularly. A very detailed checklist(s) must be in place for ensuring the desired Preventive Maintenance.
e. Strict and regular Safety Inspections must be conducted. Inspection checklists must be thoroughly designed and must take into consideration every remote/minute aspect that could cause an accident.
f. The top management must have a system to ensure that the Safety Inspections and the Preventive Maintenances are carried out strictly, regularly, in its letter and spirit.
g. A third-party Inspection agency may also be considered to eventually ensure the desired Safety Systems and Preventive Maintenance systems in such installations.
h. Habitation in the immediate vicinity of such factories must be discouraged.
j. In the industry forums (national and international), measures to enhance the safety of such installations must be discussed and the reports must be published. It will facilitate continual improvement in Safety Standards.
Through such safety measures, the lives lost could have been avoided and the effects of the gas leak could have been contained significantly. The UCL officials would also have done their duty and would not have been accused and convicted by the court.
Senior officials in such organizations would have to take the lead and have the desired safety systems and procedures in place. It makes no sense to spend a career in litigations, court visits, … with the fear of a probable jail-term hovering over the head all the time, with guilt, …. Definitely not.
What I have penned here, is an ‘ideal approach’ . There could have been some ‘practical issues’ which would have resulted in some compromise of safety systems somewhere. That’s a moot point.
Jaikishan (9th June 2010)
rjaikishan.blogspot.com
www.twitter.com\rjaikishan
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
IT: Note on CLOUD COMPUTING
(My colleague from our IT Wing, Mr B. Arun Kumar, had prepared a brief note on ‘Cloud Computing’ for my consumption, at my request. Thought of sharing Mr Arun's note (verbatim) with others through this blog; of course, I have taken his permission to do so before posting this blog.)
QUOTE:
Based on computing needs, a company decides on the technology:
Generation One------Mainframes Technology
Generation Two------Client-Server Technology
Generation Three----Cloud Computing Technology
Cloud Computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like the electricity grid. It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet.
Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that's often used to represent the Internet in flowcharts and diagrams.
The term "cloud" is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used in the past to represent the telephone network, and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online which are accessed from another web service or software like a web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers.
Most cloud computing infrastructure consists of reliable services delivered through data centers and built on servers. Clouds often appear as single points of access for all consumers' computing needs. Commercial offerings are generally expected to meet quality of service (QoS) requirements of customers and typically offer SLAs (Service Level Agreements). The major cloud service providers include Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
In general, cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure; instead they avoid capital expenditure by renting usage from a third-party provider. They consume resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are consumed, whereas others bill on a subscription basis.
Sharing "perishable and intangible" computing power among multiple tenants can improve utilization rates, as servers are not unnecessarily left idle (which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development). A side-effect of this approach is that overall computer usage rises dramatically, as customers do not have to engineer for peak load limits. In addition, "increased high-speed bandwidth" makes it possible to receive the same response times from centralized infrastructure at other sites.
Please visit the following website for understanding the cloud computing services offered by Microsoft & Google.
http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/cloud-computing.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/online/default.mspx
http://www.google.com/services/
UNQUOTE
Jaikishan
QUOTE:
Based on computing needs, a company decides on the technology:
Generation One------Mainframes Technology
Generation Two------Client-Server Technology
Generation Three----Cloud Computing Technology
Cloud Computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like the electricity grid. It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet.
Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that's often used to represent the Internet in flowcharts and diagrams.
The term "cloud" is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used in the past to represent the telephone network, and later to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online which are accessed from another web service or software like a web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers.
Most cloud computing infrastructure consists of reliable services delivered through data centers and built on servers. Clouds often appear as single points of access for all consumers' computing needs. Commercial offerings are generally expected to meet quality of service (QoS) requirements of customers and typically offer SLAs (Service Level Agreements). The major cloud service providers include Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
In general, cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure; instead they avoid capital expenditure by renting usage from a third-party provider. They consume resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are consumed, whereas others bill on a subscription basis.
Sharing "perishable and intangible" computing power among multiple tenants can improve utilization rates, as servers are not unnecessarily left idle (which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development). A side-effect of this approach is that overall computer usage rises dramatically, as customers do not have to engineer for peak load limits. In addition, "increased high-speed bandwidth" makes it possible to receive the same response times from centralized infrastructure at other sites.
Please visit the following website for understanding the cloud computing services offered by Microsoft & Google.
http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/cloud-computing.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/online/default.mspx
http://www.google.com/services/
UNQUOTE
Jaikishan
Sunday, June 6, 2010
HR: The Advantage Of Experiencing Tough Days Early In Career (MN2M)
MN2M = My Notes To Myself.
One must, especially in the early part of one’s career, work in an environment where others (superiors, peers, sub-ordinates, vendors, clients, …) are selfish &/or unreasonable &/or illogical &/or short-tempered &/or strict & tough, …. That is, an environment which normally demoralizes or de-motivates a person. He who is able to endure such experiences and yet grow in his career (as an employee or an entrepreneur), is a person who can sail through all tough situations in today’s world.
Senior management officials who had endured such negative-experiences (for a considerable period of time in their career) and had (thus) grown in their career (through a positive attitude), will make the best senior management team in an organization today. They would turn out to be good leaders, facilitators, … that any organization expects them to be.
For instance, if a person after having worked under very good bosses for a longer period of time (say, about 15 to 20 years) has to report to a new boss who is short-tempered, unreasonable, … , then in most cases, the person will not be able to cope with the new environment. Because, he had not developed the resistance and resilience needed to face and overcome such situations.
Let us consider another instance. A salesman after working in a sellers-market for a long period of time, has to later work in a buyers-market (as a result of market dynamics) will find it very difficult to survive in the new market scenario.
I was privy to such situation while in Dunlops. Dunlop products used to sell at a premium in sixties and early seventies. Customers had to pay advance and wait for a few days or weeks to get a product. It was a sellers market. Those days, a Sales Manager had to just announce his tour itinerary. The dealers in that area-of-tour used to arrange his room, food, drinks, entertainment, …. Products used to be allotted based on the manner the Sales Manager was treated by the dealers. Similar was the scenario in other firms like Firestone, ... those days. Between mid-seventies to 1980, the market changed. Nylon tyres came into the market. New companies also entered the fray. By early 80s, the sales team had to operate in a buyers- market. The new recruits in Sales were able to do well in the buyers-market vis-à-vis the experienced salesmen who had worked only in the sellers-market.
Therefore, I opine that if one goes through tough times in the early part of one’s career, one will have an advantage over others (whenever one has to face tough situations in future).
Jaikishan
www.twitter.com\rjaikishan
6th June 2010
One must, especially in the early part of one’s career, work in an environment where others (superiors, peers, sub-ordinates, vendors, clients, …) are selfish &/or unreasonable &/or illogical &/or short-tempered &/or strict & tough, …. That is, an environment which normally demoralizes or de-motivates a person. He who is able to endure such experiences and yet grow in his career (as an employee or an entrepreneur), is a person who can sail through all tough situations in today’s world.
Senior management officials who had endured such negative-experiences (for a considerable period of time in their career) and had (thus) grown in their career (through a positive attitude), will make the best senior management team in an organization today. They would turn out to be good leaders, facilitators, … that any organization expects them to be.
For instance, if a person after having worked under very good bosses for a longer period of time (say, about 15 to 20 years) has to report to a new boss who is short-tempered, unreasonable, … , then in most cases, the person will not be able to cope with the new environment. Because, he had not developed the resistance and resilience needed to face and overcome such situations.
Let us consider another instance. A salesman after working in a sellers-market for a long period of time, has to later work in a buyers-market (as a result of market dynamics) will find it very difficult to survive in the new market scenario.
I was privy to such situation while in Dunlops. Dunlop products used to sell at a premium in sixties and early seventies. Customers had to pay advance and wait for a few days or weeks to get a product. It was a sellers market. Those days, a Sales Manager had to just announce his tour itinerary. The dealers in that area-of-tour used to arrange his room, food, drinks, entertainment, …. Products used to be allotted based on the manner the Sales Manager was treated by the dealers. Similar was the scenario in other firms like Firestone, ... those days. Between mid-seventies to 1980, the market changed. Nylon tyres came into the market. New companies also entered the fray. By early 80s, the sales team had to operate in a buyers- market. The new recruits in Sales were able to do well in the buyers-market vis-à-vis the experienced salesmen who had worked only in the sellers-market.
Therefore, I opine that if one goes through tough times in the early part of one’s career, one will have an advantage over others (whenever one has to face tough situations in future).
Jaikishan
www.twitter.com\rjaikishan
6th June 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Book Review: “The HP Way” by David Packard
Like most first generation entrepreneurs, Hewlett-Packard (HP) was started in 1938 by two enterprising engineers of Stanford University --- Mr Bill Hewlett and Mr David Packard with less than US$ 600.00 investment. Today, HP has more than 650 offices and plants in over 120 countries.
The book, “The HP Way” was written by David Packard (in 1995) on how Mr Hewlett and he had built the HP organization since 1938. The company practices all aspects of management that management consultants and management books speak of.
All first generation entrepreneurs (especially) will be able to relate many instances which HP had gone through in their initial growing years, and relive those moments. Well non-entrepreneurs can also enjoy reading the book. “The HP Way” can also give insight to the actions that all organizations have to take constantly as they keep growing.
“The HP Way” is a small book of less than 200 pages. Since Mr Packard has narrated the story like diary notings, one can complete the book fast.
The book is available at all leading bookstores.
Jaikishan (16th Nov 2009)
The book, “The HP Way” was written by David Packard (in 1995) on how Mr Hewlett and he had built the HP organization since 1938. The company practices all aspects of management that management consultants and management books speak of.
All first generation entrepreneurs (especially) will be able to relate many instances which HP had gone through in their initial growing years, and relive those moments. Well non-entrepreneurs can also enjoy reading the book. “The HP Way” can also give insight to the actions that all organizations have to take constantly as they keep growing.
“The HP Way” is a small book of less than 200 pages. Since Mr Packard has narrated the story like diary notings, one can complete the book fast.
The book is available at all leading bookstores.
Jaikishan (16th Nov 2009)
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